Many moons ago, we bought a couple of IKEA LACK floating shelves for the living room. They worked well enough, but truthfully, they didn’t fill the space that well. I needed some shelves for the nursery, so I decided to reuse the LACK shelves. (We have something different happening for the living room!)

I was able to hang them by myself, but I promise, it’d be 1000x easier with a second set of hands. I just enjoy making things difficult for myself, apparently.

Hanging it is standard though. Find studs. Align. Level. Mark. Drill for anchors. Hang. I used super heavy duty anchors in addition to mounting the bar in a stud.

I think there are holes for 16 screws. I didn’t use that many because it was secured well in studs. But it’s nice that the option is there.

Then it was just a matter of sliding the shelves on the mounted bars. Fun fact: I pinched my finger SO HARD and made a blood blister. It was magical. (I was also catching up on The Good Wife at the time. Best drama on TV? Best drama on TV.)

We have a few things on the shelves, including some of husband’s old toy cars. I think I’m going to get some baskets to throw things in for easy access and simple organizing. Like wipes and health care stuff. Obviously, still need to grab a changing pad. Not that I’m cutting things close at 39 weeks or anything.

Last fall, I saw this table at Target. It was part of their Room Essentials line, and clearly made for kids going back to school. It was on sale and I had a Cartwheel discount, so I got it for $15. Why? THE BASE!

That’s a cool base. The top? Totally cheap. Fine for a dorm room. Whatever. But the metal base was great. And with a little spray paint, that neon pink was banished.

Initially, this was going to be an outdoor table, but I needed a small table for the nursery – a space to put my cell phone, a glass of water, or whatever while I feed Baby B.

But that top needed to go. Luckily, Lowe’s sells round wood table tops! I snagged this 15″ one for $7.  I aligned the base and drilled four holes where the base would attached.

I stained it and let it dry. I used a pre-stain wood conditioner. I’ve heard this stuff is miraculous.

In the name of science, I conditioned the top and not the bottom. Here’s a comparison of the wood, conditioned vs. unconditioned. Looks and feels the same to me. *shrugs*

Once it was done…I didn’t love it. The brass base was throwing me off. Easy fix: repaint it! I had a random can of chalkboard spray paint in the closet, so I used that to make it matte black. Better!

The only issue: It’s a round base and it hangs off the edge of the carpet. If I pull the carpet away, the end will bump up against the opposite wall. So that’s not happening. It doesn’t really affect the table’s purpose (things aren’t sliding off of it or anything), but maybe a couple of those round, heavy duty bumpers would help prop one side up.

Improvement? Check! I sort of wish I’d gotten the larger top to give it more overhang, but the next size up was 24″ (instead of the 15″).

I think I might give it a coat of polyurethane for posterity. Otherwise, this was an easy, cheap way to make a cheesy table look nice! A good lesson in looking at the bones of a pieces, not just its immediate appearance.

I perused Pinterest and Etsy for some nursery mobile ideas. I found this and fell in love. Absolutely gorgeous items from that seller, but not in my budget.

So I decided to make a cheap spinoff.

Materials:

• Felted wool (The local big box craft store sold packets of two colors for $2 each. I got five packages, one of each color combo available)
• 48″ dowel
• Cotton yarn
• Fishing line
• Two screw-in hooks (for hanging on the ceiling)
• Warm, soapy water
• Patience

For forming the wool balls, I used Martha’s recipe. Sorry, I didn’t take photos! I had soapy, wet hands and raisin fingers by the end of it.

When the balls were shaped, I put them on a napkin in a baking tray to dry. They seemed susceptible to shape changes while wet, so I rolled them around every once in a while to make sure they didn’t develop any flat sides (just like with a baby to prevent a flat head! See? I’m going to be a great parent.)

Fully dry and retaining their shape a couple of days later, I had the joy of stringing them on cotton yarn (something we had laying around the house). Stringing was a pain. I used a large nail with the string taped to it, and gently pushed it through the ball.

Now, I said I got five packages with two colors each. So 10 colors, which made 20 balls. Two of those balls were white, which looked like cotton balls. So I skipped those. With the 18 balls, I threaded three on six strings.

On to the dowel. I cut it into three even pieces and sanded the edges. I aligned them and made three marks: one in the middle and two on each end. USE A SMALL BIT and work your way up. Dowel wood is cheap and it will split.

The center hole was a pilot hole for a screw. I attached the three dowels by slowly drilling in a 2″ screw. I wiggled the dowels around and my base was ready.

On two dowels, I drilled two very small holes for stringing the fishing line through. (These weren’t marked and evenness didn’t matter since hanging would level it.)

Two fishing line loops on the ceiling hooks (painted to match the ceiling) felt nice and secure. It’s not exactly the heaviest thing in the world, so I don’t think it’ll spontaneously crash down. With the decorated yarn threaded and hung, I trimmed the lengths as necessary.

A few snips and some fishing line adjustments later…

This was my first time working with felt, so there are some flaws. For example, one ball has a butt crack. Another absorbed some orange while it was still wet. Oops.

Hopefully it’s mesmerizing enough to capture Baby B’s attention.

Total cost: less than $10. The wool (normally $2) was on sale. The dowel was cheap and I used one of those ubiquitous 50% off coupons. I already owned everything else. Hopefully, this will be visually appealing to Baby B and he’ll enjoy starting at it for hours on end!

And, in the name of artistic talent, I insist you look at the Etsy page for the seller that inspired this. HELLO FELTED BABY OTTER, I LOVE YOU.